Vader's Own
by Malicean
Summary: Lord Vader promotes skill, not wealth or connections. The Dark Lord's favor, nonetheless, conveys a certain political pull. A simple soldier might find himself far beyond his usual social circles that way. Though, that's just the start of his troubles…
1. Encounter

AUish. Or maybe just a couple of missing scenes from a younger, less serious time.

* * *

Maximilian Veers was starting to wonder, if it wasn't too late to decline the promotion. Not that he wasn't proud of his newly earned rank, and the sheer impossibility of refusing Lord Vader's favor aside, but two hours into the exalted gathering, the freshly minted colonel was longing for the days, back when his commanding officer had not yet thought it politic – _how he hated that word_ – to drag Veers along to… whatever this festivity was supposed to celebrate.

The aristocrats were sneering at him because he wasn't one of them; the Alderaanis were frowning at him for being a career soldier; the Alderaani aristocrats were going for a double score – and there were plenty of those at a high-class get-together only one system over from the Alderaani sector – while a few particularly intrepid souls added extra disdain for his association with the – absent, naturally – Sithlord.

None of which, unfortunately, would serve as a deterrent against the dozen or so females who'd set their sights on him. The ladies – using the term _exclusively_ to denote rank – seemed to regard the wedding band he wore as a challenge and the fact, that most of them were still hanging on to the arms of their respective_… companions_, as no hindrance.

Veers had managed to steal half an hour of agreeable discussion with a civilian engineer, but had spent the rest of the time resisting the temptation to follow the example of a handful of local fleet officers that were slowly but surely draining the bar dry.

He _had_ ditched his ridiculous flute of champagne for a glass of straight Corellian whiskey; but only an idiot or a prospective suicide got drunk in a minefield, social or otherwise, and Veers wasn't _that_ desperate yet. Instead, he had scouted along the outskirts of the ballroom, until he had found a way to access the open balconies beyond, and gone for some fresh air.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

He had all of ten glorious seconds to himself, before a polite soprano greeted him with, "Colonel."

Veers had not, hitherto, considered white silk as a camouflage material, but against a backdrop of highly polished white marble, the slight, silk-wrapped figure had been all but invisible, until it moved.

"Milady," he gave back, with a small bow, hurriedly trying to come up with a way of retreating to another, unoccupied balcony, that didn't look like he was running from a girl half his size. Preferably, before it came to light that he had not the slightest idea who she might be. He had seen her enter at the arm of some Alderaani dignitary old enough to be her father….

_Actually, the guy damn well better **is** her father, seeing how, up close, the girl beneath the regal air and adult attire can't be a day over fourteen. Possibly less. _

"So, Colonel, whose company do_ you_ prefer the stars' to?"

_Say again?_ "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

Wraithlike, a slender arm draped in white was raised towards the night sky.

"I couldn't stand the company inside anymore," the girl explained with refreshing candidness, "and I always loved to watch the stars, so I went and looked for home."

Pale fingers pointed out the brilliant star dominating the Aldraig night, even in this light-polluted area, as befitting a neighboring sun. "Where are you from?"

Nonplussed, Veers simply stared at her for a moment. He had not looked for his homeplanet's primary since his first night at the Academy, when a homesick recruit had realized that he was now a good third of the circumference around the galactic disk and the stars above him entirely unfamiliar. But then, the girl was even younger than he had been at that time…

"Denon," he replied gruffly, "Too far to be visible from here."

"Ah, yes, of course. The Inner Rim stars are only visible from the Orus to the Airon sector."

_Full points for astronomy._ A soft peal of laughter told him that he must have been thinking aloud.

"Why, thank you, good sir." White silk whispered as the girl dropped teasingly into a full court curtsey, the stateliness of the gesture somewhat lessened by an ill-concealed grin.

"I can even name all the constellations visible from here – they are virtually the same as at home. Except for Agek, the stalking bird, who is now a cyclops, because Alderraan outshines the usual eye stars."

Almost against his will, Veers found himself laughing, too.

"By all means, milady," he gave back his most regal bow, "pray do enlighten me."

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Nearly half an hour went by in amiable banter, the rancorless, open disregard of convention a welcome counterpoint to the icily polite disdain that had previously dominated the evening. The competent discussion of constellations had gradually become interspaced with a dissection of the ongoing festivity, its cause – the governor's eldest daughter's debut, apparently – and its illustrious guests with a razor-sharp wit and tongue. The first few – well-aimed and well-deserved – barbs had evidently been a test, but when they had failed to incite an indignant reaction _(to be honest, the girl had a tendency to pick up Veers' own thoughts, regarding certain people, that bordered on the uncanny)_, the young lady had cheerfully warmed to the topic.

Veers wouldn't have been a very good tactician, though, if he hadn't realized he was being herded. The girl – the Princess of Alderaan, as he had found out in the meantime, by way of a careless remark, begun by an offhanded "My father, as the Viceroy, …" – was being rather subtle about it, in a couple of years she would definitely be a dangerous discussant, but for now it was still noticeable that she was steering the topic of conversation… somewhere.

Or someone, possibly.

Given her peers' reaction to his uniform and her quite indifferent one, the Alderaani Highness was obviously going through some teenage rebellion stage. Complete with a fascination towards forbidden – or in this case: military – things.

"… too bad the Catao nebula is not visible from here, due to light pollution," said little rebel was just saying, inching towards her real target under the cover of astronomy, "without it, Paltan isn't really much to look at. His ancient name literally translates as _'He of the starless mantle'_."

The girl laughed lightly, in reminiscence. "The first time I saw Lord Vader on the news, as a child, I called _him_ Paltan. My parents were not amused."

_A sensible reaction._ Before Veers could say anything, however, the princess threw him a shrewd look.

"You are one of _His_, aren't you? I have heard people mention it. What is he like?"

The dark eyes sparkled with something that was halfway between childish and female curiosity, and somehow the colonel felt the Sithlord an inappropriate subject to either. He tried to head off the topic by pleading ignorance. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"You are one of _Vader's Own_, one of the people he has promoted himself. Aren't you?"

_One of _Vader's Own_ – what a fancy title._ "If you insist of calling it that way, yes, I am."

A radiant smile, just visible in the semi-darkness. "Then you must know: What is he like, when he is not pretending to be the Emperor's three-dimensional shadow?"

"Excuse me?" Irritation at the flippancy lent a bit of an edge to his tone.

Alas, the young princess was not as easily discouraged. "All that Lord Vader does, at official functions, is to loom, tall and dark, behind His Majesty," she explained nonchalantly, "I am certain, there is more to him than _that_."

Another impish smile. "After all, it is only in ancient fairytales, where one finds the sort of sorcerer that can detach his own shadow and sent it away to do his – usually sinister – bidding. And while there is little enough confirmable information about his lordship, that he might just as well be a mythological creature, he is obviously not."

Maybe that made him a less than ideal Imperial, but while Veers could effortlessly decide that the unflattering simile about the old man on the throne had been a case of childish babble and could be safely ignored, he felt less sanguine about the dismissive way the girl spoke about his Supreme Commander. "Young lady, this is not a joking matter!"

Everything childish fell away like a dropped mask, and for a moment the colonel caught a glimpse of the young woman, that would be a force to be reckoned with, in a few more years.

"You admire him." No guess at all, but dead certainty.

"Of course, I do! Lord Vader is the best damn commander I have ever met – and I have been a soldier for longer than you have been alive – a master tactician and always along at the frontlines, either with the ground troops or with the TIEs. He… " Veers shook his head. "You have neither the knowledge nor the experience to appreciate what I am talking about!"

"No, I don't," the girl snapped, with unexpected fierceness, "because the moment I mention him, everyone changes the topic!"

She caught herself, with visible effort. "My apologies, Colonel," she said, with a seriousness far beyond her years, "I misspoke. Would you please consider telling me more, regardless?"

It would have served her right, if he just turned on his heels now and walked away. But then, he should have done that, the moment he had noticed her presence on the balcony.

"He has no tolerance for incompetence," the colonel conceded with a scowl. The princess gave a soft, startled laugh.

"Ah, finally, a kindred soul," she murmured under her breath, before wondering, "Does he never have to deal with Imperial administration? How does he manage not to strangle the bureaucrats, five minutes into each committee meeting?"

"He doesn't, on occasion, I expect."

The girl gave an amused snort, that was utterly unladylike, but very much a teenager, before sobering abruptly. "It is true then, that he kills his own men, sometimes?"

Veers rubbed a hand across his face in frustration. "Child, an incompetent officer has the potential to kill more of his own troops than any enemy can ever hope to."

The princess looked about to argue, when she was stopped by the intrusion of new voices and steps. A young woman and a slightly older man stepped onto the balcony. With their eyes still accustomed to the bright glare of the inside lights, they didn't seem to notice that it was already occupied.

"Now, isn't this much better than that stiff atmosphere inside?" the man asked.

The woman agreed softly, a few more words were exchanged and then the man's arm slid from her arm to around her hips and… lower. The woman tried to sidestep.

"None of that, Hawkur, please."

The man tightened his grip, drawing the woman closer, crowding her against the balustrade. "Come on, Siofra, turnabout is fair play. You asked me for a favor, now it's my turn to…"

Veers had been about to announce his presence by stepping over to twist the molester's arm off his victim – and probably off the shoulder joint, too – when a swirl of white silk shot past him, radiating anger like a furnace heat. The colonel had seen the great steelworks supplying the Kuat shipyards, he felt competent to draw the comparison. He had also seen such incandescent wrath before, and for one vertigo-inducing moment, the petite girl reminded him of a much taller Sithlord.

"Undersecretary Kilesa, how dare you! ..."

The young woman was no fool, she fled the moment Mr. Kilesa was otherwise preoccupied. Veers hung back, mesmerized. He had rarely witnessed such a devastating dressing-down, and never one as exquisitely worded. The colonel didn't hear a single word unfit to be uttered in polite company, but still the man went red and white repeatedly, in rapid succession.

In a last-ditch effort he lunged at her, but the princess ducked away from his first grab and kicked out in a way that hurt just watching, both because of how pointed her shoes were and because of how instable her footing had to be, on those high heels. The man folded with a gasp.

Eyes still aflame, the girl turned back at Veers. "Please excuse me, Colonel, I have to make sure that Miss Hevgon is alright."

Head held high, fury surrounding her with a presence far beyond her stature, Her Highness of Alderaan stormed off.

Veers also stepped back into the ballroom. And if there was a crunch of bone beneath his boot-heel – well, people really ought to know better than to let their limbs laying around where someone might step on them. Especially when they were trying to align a small hold-out blaster with the back of a young girl.


	2. Reaction

For the rest of the evening, Veers kept half an eye on the diminutive princess – a few quiet words with security had removed a certain piece of scum from the premises, but better safe than sorry.

He watched the man, she had entered the party with, pounce on her – in a most dignified manner, naturally – the moment she reemerged from wherever she'd disappeared to, with the unfortunate Miss Hevgon. Her pale complexion almost milky against his much darker tan, there was nonetheless a certain family resemblance in the way they held themselves, the colonel decided. The tall, well-dressed man obviously demanded an accounting of her whereabouts, but since there was more worry than possessiveness in his body language, Veers left them to it.

The little firebrand could use a good scolding, for the stunts she'd pulled.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Veers had been contemplating a suitable replacement for his now empty glass of Whyren's Reserve, when a soft voice spoke up beside him.

"I couldn't help but notice that you are paying my daughter an unusual amount of attention, Colonel." The refined, Old Core accent of the born aristocrat would have put Veers on edge, even without the insinuations.

"Your daughter is a child, sir," he gave back frostily. "Are you questioning my intelligence for not noticing or my integrity for pursuing her regardless?"

"Neither or both, depending on your reasons to do so."

Veers turned, to look straight – a somewhat uncommon occurrence, usually a downward component was involved – into a pair of dark eyes that met his glare with a calm but steely determination. The colonel swallowed his first, angry reaction.

"Your daughter has no sense of self-preservation, sir," he said gruffly.

_Spoiled little princess that she is, that never had to face the consequences of her actions, _he added silently, hoping whimsically that the uncanny knack for guessing people's thoughts had been a paternal heritage.

The tall dignitary went very, very still.

"What makes you say that, Colonel?" he asked, voice as smooth and cool – and potentially dangerous – as freshly formed ice.

Veers almost grinned. Mind-reader or not, the viceroy cum senator was clearly rattled.

"What has your daughter told you about the… incident, earlier?" the colonel asked back.

Prince Organa eyed him for a moment, the implacable calm of the trained diplomat shielding his features like a mask, before he slumped, minutely.

"Not nearly enough, obviously," he said with a small sigh. "Understand, Colonel, my daughter would never lie to me, but it would seem, she is beginning to practice the art of cautious editing."

_A politician's child, what did you expect?!_ Before Veers could comment aloud, the other man went on, "According to _her _version, she spent half an hour in an astronomical discussion with a like-minded soul from the Aldraig deputation, who also preferred the company of the stars to that available indoors."

A speculative look ran down his uniform and the colonel nodded curtly.

Another, nigh-undetectable sigh. The Aldraig deputation had been half military, half civilian functionaries, and the princess of the staunchly pacifistic world of Alderaan had obviously thought it prudent, to leave her father in the dark about which half she had found common interests with.

"Said discussion was then abruptly terminated by the arrival of the – as of tonight _former_ – Undersecretary Kilesa, intent on taking inacceptable liberties with Miss Hevgon. The unexpected presence of witnesses deterred Mr. Kilesa, my daughter told him off – in no uncertain terms, I presume –" Veers could only nod in emphatic agreement, "before she went on to console Miss Hevgon."

The glacial implacability resurfaced. "What else should I be aware of, Colonel?"

"Kilesa tried to counter her verbal flaying by physical violence," Veers reported bluntly.

"And though she put those spiked monstrosities, women call dress-shoes, to good use," he gave a small nod of approval, "the fact remains, that she turned her back on that… piece of scum immediately afterwards, and the man had a blaster…"

His Serene Highness went pale. "She ought to have mentioned _that!"_ he said faintly.

"I doubt she noticed," the colonel conceded, "he didn't reach for it until she'd turned and, "Veers allowed himself a vicious smile, "he never got very far."

Pacifistic ideals didn't quite cut it, when one's kids were threatened, apparently. The tall aristocrat met his gaze with one just as fierce.

"You wouldn't know, by any chance, where I could find Mr. Kilesa, now?"

"I had a few words with security, explaining that he tried to assault a young woman, and then attacked a teenaged girl when his first attempt was thwarted. I wasn't too fancy with the details – but I doubt, he is enjoying his stay."

"I see." The Viceroy of Alderaan held out his hand for a firm shake.

"You have my thanks, Colonel!" he said earnestly.

When Veers would have released the other man's fingers, however, Organa clenched his – and _damn_, but for a soft-spoken diplomat the man had a strong grip.

"Do not doubt, though, that should I find out that your association with my daughter was initiated with less than honorable intentions in mind, I will destroy you, utterly. And I will make use of all the means available to me, by my rank, wealth and station, to do so."

Seeing how he dealt with threats as a profession, the colonel wasn't overly impressed; but – much to his chagrin – he found himself starting to like the aristocratic politician.

"Fair enough, Your Highness."

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

They exchanged a few more words on the willfulness of children in their teens; Veers admitted to having a son in that particular age group himself, but argued that, given the man-eaters prowling the ballroom, he wouldn't want _any_ teenaged child of his, regardless of gender, on the loose at the ongoing party. Organa, always the shrewd politician, used this as a case in point, before excusing himself to have a few more words, concerning non-omissible information, with his own little hellion.

When he finally got leave to exit the ball, the colonel found himself in a much better mood than he would have expected at the opening.

* * *

A/N: From here on, I'm going to make this a little interactive: under which circumstances, do you think, the colonel and the princess should run into each other again? Put forth a scenario I'm going to adopt and you'll get full bragging rights (natch ;-), full acknowledgement and the right to name a character; propose a scenario I have already thought of – there's some three to four further chapters already lined up – and you'll get at least an honorable mention.


	3. Response

I'm not perfectly happy with this, but it's not getting better anytime soon. My muse watched _The Hobbit_ and was led astray…

_Warning: contains traces of nuts. May cause slight feelings of irritation – if so, read the A/N at the bottom, before you cry foul, will you?_

* * *

The situation on Nihoa was a mess. A combined tectonic and political upheaval[1] had left the planet bereft of a functioning governmental body; consequently, the initial panic had erupted into anarchy, turning all relief efforts – intra- or interplanetary – into a farce.

Veers and three full battalions of walkers plus auxiliaries had been charged with restoring peace and order. The first indication, of how dire the local circumstances really were, had been the fact that the ranking officer of the Imperial Forces in and around the capitol had been a dead exhausted lieutenant. A local boy, judging by his accent, he had done as much as possible with his severely decimated forces, but in a major crisis, personal entanglements were more hindrance than help, in Veers' experience.

Then, when the colonel had been halfway through his carefully scripted introduction speech – courtesy of the Imperial Department of Information – delivered from the top of the command section of his kneeling AT-AT, a figure in shabby but fiery red robes, perched on a half-crumbled piece of masonry high above the main crowd, had started to screech back.

Gangs of looters, raiders and black-marketeers were just one side of the trouble brewing among the ruins, as it were. Ancient beliefs, volcano gods lain dormant for as long as their respective home mountain and likewise thought to be extinct, had resurfaced with a vengeance in the aftermath of the eruption and had made an already dismal situation a lot worse. Doom preachers, declaring the disaster a just punishment for sleazy politicians, for corruption brought about by outworlders, or simply and all-encompassingly for a sinful populace, had appeared at every corner and whipped the frightened masses into a frenzy. As a result, relief teams had been hindered or even come under attack, much needed supplies spilled senselessly onto the rubble, all to appease an indifferent force of nature – or rather, in Veers' indubitably blasphemous opinion, to satisfy the (self-) destructive tendencies of certain self-proclaimed prophets.

The colonel had toggled the comlink at his collar and talked on, ignoring the interruption; his words, amplified by speakers mounted at the chin of each walker, had drowned out a voice distorted by hysteria.

About two sentences later, a stone the size of his fist had gone ricochet against the armored main body of the AT-AT, next to Veers' head. _Enough firepower to level what was left of the city, and the nutjob thought it opportune, to throw a stone at the man at the front – I hate fanatics!_

The crowd had started to panic, even before a single bolt of plasma had gone over their heads and a bundle of red rags toppled down. There had been deaths, in that panic alone, but if even one of his men had reacted without waiting for orders….

Veers had skipped the rest of the script, at that point.

"I have been given the job of restoring peace and order, and by all gods, I will do so! Do not mistake me for someone sprouting empty words," he had snarled, reholstering his sidearm – and the crowd seemed convinced.

Repeats of his words had echoed across the ruins for the rest of the day, in an endless loop, all over the city, as the walkers set up patrols through all the major lanes; the heavy AT-ATs crunching their way straight through the rubble, beating the track for the lighter, more agile but more obstacle-limited scout walkers and the purely repulsor driven transports behind those.

Word-of-mouth had spread even more quickly.

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By the end of the day, Veers was wishing he could use this quick and final way of dealing with irritants more often. The heads of more than a dozen relief teams, from at least as many different planets, were clamoring for troop escorts and condemning his use of excessive force, decrying the way the heavy walkers had indiscriminately compressed the debris as murderous in regards of still buried survivors and demanding more access routes to be cleared – often all of the above in the same breath.

"It has been over a week since the earthquake, with freezing nights in-between, the likelihood of survivors underneath the rubble was practically nil," a regretful but firm voice unexpectedly came to his defense.

In all this bedlam, the calm assurance of the grizzled, experienced leader of the Alderaani strike team was an unanticipated boon. Better organized and less obnoxious in his demands than most others, Veers leaned heavily on the older man's example to get the rest of the helpful mess sorted out, at long last; and then the colonel could finally prepare for the less cooperative elements he expected to meet, soon.

He was not disappointed. The first night was bloody, very bloody.

The second one barely less.

The third one was very, very quiet.

Or as quiet was could be, with the reverberating steps of the walkers patrolling the city, each stride a roll of muted thunder, as the ground rang hollowly beneath their weight, like a gigantic bass drum. Within days, the locals called the machines _earth-shakers_.

Veers swore that the first person, to liken _him_ to one of the volcano gods, would get tossed from the top hatch of a marching AT-AT.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

It was past midnight, near the end of the second week, just when he'd managed to make a significant dent into the accumulating paperwork and was about to call it a night, when one of the returning patrol leaders saw fit to knock at his door.

Forcing down the urge to scratch the back of his neck – half-healed lacerations still smarted, some eight days later, where the collar chafed at them: said stone had shed a spray of sharp splinters upon impact – Veers called out resignedly, "Come in."

The night had again been quiet, so far, but Lt. Koa was one of his most levelheaded men and usually smart enough to use his own head; especially, if the alternative disturbed a superior, already cranky from lack of sleep, at such a late hour.

"Sir, we caught this… uh, person breaking curfew in the Kapia district." The lanky lieutenant made a curiously helpless gesture. "She insisted, sir."

This… uh, person wore a light grey jumpsuit, that might have once been white before the ubiquitous dust covered it, and didn't quite come up to the armored shoulders of the two soldiers, each keeping a hand around one of her arms, but the indignant glare made more than up for the lack of physical stature.

_Princess Organa, I wish, I was more surprised. _The girl had arrived a couple of days ago, along with the second wave of reinforcements for the Alderaani team. She had greeted him with a smile so brilliant, that the colonel had managed a small one of his own in return (no matter how bleak the situation in general) – before she'd argued for half an hour to ease the restrictions placed on the populace. Veers still didn't know what had possessed him to _argue back_, instead of _stating authoritatively_ how things _were_. He also had no idea what Prince Organa had been thinking, to allow his teenaged daughter in the middle of a disaster area cum war zone. "Mercy missions are a staple for princesses" just didn't cut it, in the colonel's opinion.

Veers glared right back, even as he gestured at the soldiers to relax their restraining grip.

"How many escorts did she have?"

The lieutenant hesitated momentarily and the urge, to vault over his desk, grab the little idiot by that ridiculous tangle of braids she wore and shake some sense into her, became nearly overwhelming.

"No escorts," the colonel said slowly, in a tone that made the younger officer nod a hasty confirmation before stepping back, out of the line of fire, so to speak. _Smart man._

"**What the hell have you been thinking, young lady?! **Sneaking off alone, at night, during a general lock-down, in a city full of armed insurgents and the even more heavily armed forces hunting them!"

The politician's daughter drew wounded righteousness around her like an icy armor. "I was thinking of going home, to bed, peacefully, when your men attacked me!"

Veers checked the time and subtracted half an hour. "You were going home," he repeated dangerously, "at one in the morning? That's no time for a kid…"

Pale cheeks colored. "That's not for you to decide! You're not my father!"

_Now, _there_ was a terrifying thought._ "Thank heavens, no! I would have shot myself years ago, undoubtedly.

You, too," he added as an afterthought, "that would have made the galaxy a much more peaceable place."

"Excuse me? That's…"

"And actually, it _is_ for me to decide," he cut across her squeak of indignation. "I realize that the word _'Curfew'_ has held no real significance for a spoiled little princess like you, so far, **but this is a city under martial law!** That means curfews are enforced by deadly force! If Lt. Koa hadn't used some discretion in his orders to …."

"Oh, they did try to shoot me, they just couldn't hit me!" the infuriating girl interrupted right back, with the smug, if entirely unfounded, superiority only a teenager sky-high on adrenaline can muster.

_Alright, that did it!_ Veers stood, took a hold of the little troublemaker by the scruff of the neck and shoved her back into the arms of the (increasingly bemused by the heated exchange) waiting soldiers.

"Take her down to the eastern yard, Koa. Show her what happens if you _do_ shoot to kill!"

The dark eyes went wide. "What?! But you can't… You can't just shoot me! I have rights! I…"

The colonel leaned forward, using all of his 95 kilograms against her barely 50 to lend emphasis to his words. He rapped a knuckle against his rank plates. "_This_, in combination with the aforementioned martial law, says _I can_."

He looked up. "Lieutenant."

The younger man's face was stony. "Sir?"

"Do as I said. Then return here, understood?"

"Yessir."

"Dismissed."

The princess was quiet, when the armored soldiers dragged her away. The look in her eyes, however, was the sort that could haunt a man for the rest of his days – if one felt so inclined.

Shock and utter betrayal.

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Twenty minutes later, it was smoldering anger.

Her Highness was looking more than a little green around the gills – unsurprisingly, heavy blaster wounds were never a pleasant sight, and the eastern yard had served as a makeshift storage place for the bodies of those killed by patrols for the last few days. Tonight's haul had been no more than a dozen, but the stench of burnt and torn bodies and beginning corruption hung thickly in the enclosed space.

Anger was probably the only thing keeping her upright. It was more than enough, apparently.

"You tricked me!" she accused, the moment she was back through the door to his office.

"Did I?" Veers asked back mildly – twenty minutes had proven enough to get over his own agitation. "Lieutenant Koa, remind me, what were my exact words?"

"Take her down to the eastern yard and show her what happens if we do shoot to kill," the junior officer parroted back obediently.

"Quite so." The colonel turned back towards the princess. "I hope, what you saw was not to your liking?"

"Not to my…? Of course not! Wh…"

"Good. I trust, your father would have liked the sight even less, if it had been your corpse in a body bag down there."

_That_ shut her up, for the moment at least. Making good use of the blessed silence, Veers went on to put the rest of the affair to order.

"Lieutenant, inform the Alderaani emergency relief team that I wish to have a few words with their chief of security, at his earliest convenience. Tell them, it concerns his wayward princess – that should get a reaction."

He dismissed the soldiers, set the girl to the task of writing a statement about the sequence of events that had brought her to his office, starting with the moment she'd decided to leave the rest of the Alderaani relief team, and went back to his own pile of paperwork while they waited.

A few minutes of frowning thoughtfully at the datapad and a few more of typing rapidly produced an elegant piece of wordsmithing, full of sophisticated syntax, flawless grammar and elaborate vocabulary, that boiled down to:

_I couldn't sleep. I had heard about this local (name or description unknown, but I got a likely area to start looking) that could be a great help to the relief efforts and decided to go look for him. Since the natives have a different circadian rhythm than humans, searching him out at night wasn't a stupid idea. I couldn't find him, though, because that pesky patrol rudely interrupted me._

In short, there were holes in that story you could steer an AT-AT through. Hell, it could probably do cart-wheels. Nonetheless, the princess denied repeatedly that there was anything of relevance to add. In the end, Veers silently swapped her datapad for one from his own pile.

The girl stared at the data columns uncomprehendingly. "What am I looking at?"

"Civilian death rate, before and after our forces touched down." There was a nasty spike on the first and second day, admittedly, but then the numbers had dropped to a fraction of the pre-touchdown anarchy.

He gave her a minute to absorb the figures, then reached over the table and put a hand around her chin. "Girl, look at me. Are you involved with any of the local insurgent groups?"

"No, Colonel," she said, looking straight into his eyes.

He believed her.

That didn't stop him from advising the Alderaani Sec-chief to put the princess under lock-and-key by night and on a leash during daylight forays. The harassed-looking man seemed quite agreeable, despite the girl's vehement protests.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Three days later, he found out what had been omitted, when the princess dropped by in the early evening, with a lean but wiry, middle-aged native in tow, smugly triumphant as only a child outsmarting adults can be.

"Tonuga Molokai, allow me to present Colonel Veers," she said proudly, by way of introduction.

Veers nodded politely. "A pleasure, I'm sure, ma'am. But your reasons for…"

He petered off. The Nihoans were near-humans that might pass inspection at a cursory glance, but now, with the usually half-closed nictitating membranes drawing back, Veers stared into eyes that were decidedly inhuman. Solid color, apparently pupilless eyes in various shades of brown and amber were a defining feature of the species, but he had never before seen quite that tone of molten metal. _Or molten lava, come to think of it. _

He started to reach for his sidearm. "You're one of the damn volcano high-priests!"

Twin pools of liquid fire regarded him impassively. "I am. One of the ancient line. Tell me, Tonuga kawa,_ warmaster, _Veers, have you ever seen eyes like mine among the screaming fools?"

"No. But I rarely get the chance to look at them that closely."

A regal inclination of the angular head. "Understandable."

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One hour later, the colonel found himself standing atop his AT-AT once more, while beneath him twenty meters of durasteel monster slowly went to its knees.

Veers knew a few scout commanders who preferred to ride in the open top hatch of their vessels, for the enhanced surround view that position afforded – not to speak of a certain daredevil aspect. An AT-AT, on the other hand, was too massive to gain any surveillance advantage by such a maneuver – the daredevil aspect, however, increased with the height.

The high-priestess had insisted on the dramatic entrance – that he could agree with. The slight, white-clad figure on his other side, though, currently wearing an expression of gleeful excitement while polished armor swayed under her feet, had been supposed to stay safely inside; at the very least, until the massive war machine stopped moving!

_Leash,_ he thought viciously_, leash and a really solid anchor!_

Molokai started speaking. Veers couldn't understand a word of her speech – but damn, the lady had a good oratory voice. Both facts combined should have worried him – _and since when was the intuition of a fifteen-year-old girl a sound base for tactical decisions, anyway?_ – but the crowd didn't turn aggressive under the passionate sermon.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Sanctioned by an authority with undeniably authentic legitimizations, the fervor whipped up before was now channeled into _protecting and supporting_ the relief and reconstruction efforts.

Between a populace no longer ignoring their lawless dealings and the uncompromising pursuit by the Imperial Forces, the criminal gangs were all but subdued by the end of the month, too, and peace was restored.

Or, as a certain exasperating child would put it: "We make a good team, don't we?"

* * *

[1] The Nihoan governor – not the most popular of leaders but no worse than most – had, as he was wont to do at this time of the year, retired to one of the fashionable hot-spring bathes some 200 kilometers south of the capitol. Most of the planet's Who-is-Who could be found there, too; partly because they meant to strike a deal with the system ruler while he was at his most relaxed, partly because it had been just the thing to do, at this season, for centuries.

This year, however, the snow-capped cone providing the picturesque background for all those sentimental souvenir holos, abruptly shed a full third of its 4500 meter height and buried some 2000 square kilometers under the ash-and-fire cataclysm of a gigantic pyroclastic flow. Simultaneously, an aerosol plume of half-molten volcanic glass reached up to the stratosphere and downed all but the most hardy – or most lucky – flight craft in an even larger area.

Faint warning shivers had gone unnoticed among the regular tremors so common in the region that the locals didn't even notice them anymore; as the eruption proceeded to vent tectonic pressure build up over the course of millennia, however, the tension beneath the surrounding formations rebounded like a stretched rubber sheet suddenly released – a rubber sheet the size of half a continent. While the remnants of the Nihoan government were still reeling under this all but decapitating blow, the capitol (plus thousands of smaller settlements, but their population total barely reached that of the planet's largest city) was devastated by an earthquake of unprecedented magnitude. The newly built Imperial representative buildings were hit hardest, but plenty of the older architecture came down like houses of cards, too.

* * *

A/N: The religious nutjobs aren't based on any real-life examples, or rather, of course they are, but only secondhand. I was reading 40K novels by D. Abnett, when this chapter first took shape, within sight of Mt. Vesuvius.

A/N 2: As some of you doubtlessly noticed, I also used certain Hawaiian motives (in keeping with the volcano theme), especially for naming people and places. Tonuga is a mix of the Hawaiian and the Polynesian words for a title meaning _'master/mistress of his/her chosen trade'_. Doesn't matter if that trade is building boats, cooking meals – or communication with higher forces. A master shipwright, a chef and a priest get the same title, in that system. As does a warchief (or commanding officer)…


	4. Payback

Honorable mention goes to _ladyofdarkstar_, who proposed some sort of rescue mission. This might be not not quite what you were asking for, but it's what I already had in mind, at that time. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

* * *

It was getting harder and harder to keep reality and imaginary specters apart – blood loss and dehydration did that to a man. Old man Forgest had at least had the decency to stay a mere gruff voice in his head; but now he could _see_ a white apparition wavering in from of him. It seemed quite insistent that he should come with it, but he made sure not to let go of the tree. Even while stopping for an – excessively often necessary – breather, he needed to keep upright, or he would never get up again.

_Though, you mustn't fall asleep on your feet, either – maybe talking to the mirage would keep you awake?_ Subconsciously, he leaned towards the white wisp of imagination, found something solid that coincided remarkably well with the specter and leaned onto that, too.

The world tilted.

The forest floor was both warmer and softer than he had expected. Maybe it wouldn't be_ that_ bad if he rested his legs for just a moment…

He blackened out.

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Something was squirming beneath his belly. Instincts, far older than sentience, screeched _'something's trying to eat you!'_ and he arched away from the writhing snake, grub, whatever.

Agony flared in his shoulder at the unthinking move, and he barely managed to catch himself on his good arm, when he fell back with a guttural cry.

Terrified dark eyes stared into his, less than a handbreadth away.

He blinked – and the silence splintered into high-pitched chattering.

Apparently, the specter had split in two, when he had fallen over. One half, the one he had fallen onto, when he had taken it for real, looked like a dark-haired girl – one wearing a familiar face, even, though the little princess's factual presence in these backwater woodlands was about as preposterous as that of his long dead instructor. The other half, approaching rapidly through the swaying undergrowth, with what looked like a standard issue vehicle first aid case in hand, was a color-swapped, white-haired version.

_Hallucination – didn't have to make sense._

"Leia! I told you not to try and move him alone, he's twice your weight!" the pale figure to his left snapped, "Now look what has… oh Sith!"

Something squirmed a bit more and what felt like small hands took up some of his weight. "What?! What's wrong, Winter?"

Winter wore snowy hair – _perfectly sensible, by delusion standards_. He decided not to let her touch him, he couldn't afford to lose any more body heat.

"There is a piece of metal sticking from his back." Oddly enough, the frost specter sounded close to being sick.

"What?! Take it out!"

"No! No, we mustn't! He might bleed to death, otherwise."

"That's…" the faux-familiar voice next to him – _what had the winter called her, Leia?_ – trailed off. "You remember that from somewhere, right? You _know _what you are doing?"

"I remember this from a basic first aid course in primary school, yes. And I remember anatomy books. His shoulder blade is broken, I believe. The joint is not where it's supposed to be. I suspect a concussion, too, his eyes don't focus properly."

He made a croaky noise of agreement. Something brushed the tattered sleeve on his good arm aside and pinched the back of his hand. He barely felt it.

"Severely dehydrated, too. Even I remember how to check for that. Alright, Winter, you do whatever you can about the shoulder wound, I'll get some water into him. Then we take him to the speeder and into hospital, as fast as possible."

Winter sighed, incongruently warm air ghosting over his face. "You realize that he weighs about as much as the two of us combined, do you? And the speeder can't any nearer without getting tangled in the undergrowth."

He was growing to like that part of the illusion; would have been nice, if the real little firebrand had her own levelheaded voice of reason, too.

He liked even more, the part where some cool liquid trickled into his mouth, soothing his parched throat. At that point, he didn't really care, if he'd found an actual source of water, or was just dreaming up the desperately needed drink – it felt good, either way.

Something tugged at the cloth sticking to his injured back, or catching at the ragged piece of exploded scout ship. Expectations, seared into his brain these last… _two?... three?..._ days, made him brace for the pain, but the white-hot spikes felt strangely dull, his shoulder numb and growing number.

The deadened sensations couldn't be a good sign – _you let _Winter_ touch you, what did you expect? _– but the lack of pain was welcome. He obeyed, when the soft voice told him to drink some more water, and let the babble wash over him, otherwise.

"Father is doing the circuit through the nearer systems and took me along, in preparation for next year's campaign, I guess. I went to the command post, because someone had told me you were here, but they wouldn't let me in. It wasn't until I lost my temper," – he smirked, that sounded a _very_ lifelike reaction – "that someone told me, you'd been shot down and were missing in action."

The unreal voice faltered. "My father said… my father said, you had made a decision, long ago, to become a soldier, and part of that decision was, to accept the risk of dying or getting lost. He said it very gently – but I'm not very good at accepting things!"

He could imagine the defiant tilt of her chin so very well, at that last remark, he didn't even have to look at her – _which was circular logic, once you thought about it, because he was imagining her, in the first place._

But acceptance… passive acceptance wasn't his forte, either. He struggled back to his feet, his elbow catching Winter solidly in the face.

The pale specter cursed in fluent Bothese – she sounded like an angry cat. "Remind me, Leia," she went on, more intelligibly, "why are we doing this, again?"

A brittle laugh, the sort just one step left of hysteria. "Winter, you never need a reminder, you don't forget anything!"

"I remember what you told me, but the words must have made more sense then, than they do now. So I must be missing something."

He ignored the squabble and staggered on; the mirage had been quite useful to get his feet back under him, but he needed to find more substantial help before hypovolemic shock, infection or hypothermia finished him off.

Twin wisps of white appeared back at his side, urging him deeper into the undergrowth. It wasn't worth the effort to defy them, he decided, when the first attempt to ignore them made him walk into something solid. Not that his sense of direction was worth a damn anyway, anymore.

He staggered on, for maybe a few hundred – endless – meters, the two persistent phantoms miraculously supporting him whenever he needed to catch his balance, until he fell across something cool and metal.

Things got _really_ hazy after that.

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"… no, you pilot! We are trying to transport a deadweight, here, that nearly outweighs the two of us. I can't rebalance that, if he shifts suddenly. You do!

"Don't call him _dead_weight!

"Sorry, Leia. But still…

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"Leia, we need to get our story straight. _'I'm just good at finding things'_ made your own father look at you weirdly, last time; I don't think any Imperial official is going to buy that…"

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Soft, if slightly damp, sweet-smelling moss beneath his face and a distant voice calling imperiously, "Hey! Hey you, Officer! There is an injured man in the woods, over there, he needs immediate medical attention!"

"It's a trap, sir," metallic distortion rasped back.

"What? No! It's not! Listen, he's dressed the same grey as you are, except he's wearing six squares, here, and…"

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He woke to the familiar – if utterly loathed – taste of gunmetal and tangerette juice in his mouth, that signified a substantial bacta dunk.

Blinking sluggishly, he found equally familiar grey uniforms and sterile walls surrounding him.

"Ah, you are awake." Bright lights blinded him abruptly. "Pupillary reflex back to normal, good, good. Now, I need you to answer a few questions for me. Who are you?"

"Veers, Maximilian Julian. Colonel. C4827-18633."

"Good, that checks with your ID-chip and iris scan. The name of this planet?"

_Trick question._ "The last planet, I remember for certain, is Cardua. _This_ might be anywhere. And before you ask, the last date, I can be absolutely sure of, was 15:04:25, I expect, it's now at least three days later."

A pause, then a slow smile. The uniformed doctor nodded appreciatively. "Very good, Colonel. It's five days, by the way, though you spent almost two of those in bacta, and the planet is still the same. And now for the question, I'm sure you'll grow sick and tired of hearing, over the next few days: what do you remember, of what happened five days ago?"

"Scout trip through sector 52. We got shot down near the edge of the Onithean range, blast took out two thirds of the repulsors and a substantial portion of the cabin. Three dead immediately. Pilot tried to stabilize the craft close to the surface and told us to jump. I hit a tree – which turned out to be a very lucky coincidence, since the trunk shielded me from most of the blast when the rest of the engines exploded."

"I still picked an impressive amount of shrapnel from all over your left side. Most of it pinpricks, admittedly, but not all. That thing you caught in the shoulder blade was a piece of stabilizer, or so I am told. Good catch, by the way, if it had hit something less solid, it would have gone right through you. But, don't let me interrupt you."

"The cockpit ejection capsule was caught in the blast. It was about half the size, it should have been, when I found it. I was unable to locate any other survivors, before the rebel group, that had fired the fatal blast, arrived to make sure of their kill. I evaded, they pursued; but I lost them at a ravine, where they assumed, I had fallen over the edge and left me for dead. I tried to follow the riverbed, knowing that it would lead me back to civilization, eventually, but the terrain soon went impassable. So I had to try my luck in the forest."

"And then?"

Veers shrugged, froze when his body remembered pain and slowly relaxed when his shoulder turned out to be only mildly sore. "I walked through a lot of trees. When things got increasingly hazy, I walked _into_ a lot of trees. At some point I must have blackened out for good, because I woke up here."

"That's it?" The MedCorps soldier looked half incredulous, half expectant. "Colonel, you were found nearly two hundred klicks away from the crash site. If you'd marched fifty, in the two-and-a-half days since the crash before a patrol picked you up, I'd call that a minor miracle, but, given the terrain and the state you were in, the whole distance is simply impossible."

_So, who gave you a lift that you won't mention, and what price did you pay for the help?_ was left unspoken.

The colonel shrugged again. "As I said. Things got hazy. Except for the trees I don't remember anything… substantial."

The uniformed doctor jumped at the minute hesitation. "What do you mean, nothing _substantial_?"

"I had a long conversation with a man dead since the Clone Wars, at some point."

The doctor fingered his penlight." What else?"

Irritated at the implied disloyalty, Veers offered a sarcastic "Pretty young girls promising all kinds of nice rewards if I just kept on walking and followed them," and the med officer caught the hint and left the further questioning to the professionals.

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He was – as the doctor had foretold – going over the story for the umpteenth time, at present with an ISB spook, as far as he could tell, when a strident voice cut through the flimsy walls.

"No, _you listen to me_, now! This man saved my life, twice in as many years, and quite possibly averted a rape, too, the first time around. Now I hear, he is missing, presumed dead – no, he is critically injured – no, he is… this is unacceptable! You will give me the information I asked for, and you will give it now, or I swear, I will take this before the Senate!"

_Déjà vu._ And hadn't he thought that reaction_ so very_ lifelike? As the hallucination had proclaimed, people caved under the temper.

Not five minutes later, there was an almost timid knock, but when the agent snarled his "What is it?", the door all but rebounded off the adjacent wall.

White flowing dress, a matching cape with the hood thrown back – contrary to the almost identical figure beside her, but Veers caught, with a horrible feeling of foreboding, a glimpse of a white braid. Two liveried guards brought up the rear – apparently Organa Sr. was slowly learning his lessons.

He stared at the petite princess. "Princess Organa, what are you doing here?"

"Colonel Veers, I am _so_ pleased to see the rumors about your condition are mostly untrue. You _are_ on the mend, I trust?" Old Core nobility at its thickest oozed from the tone, the poise, the way she completely disregarded the other man in the room. From the corner of his eyes, Veers caught the spook mouthing "Princess?!", and the calculating look of _'friends in high places?'_

_Good._ For all that the colonel disliked relying on _'connections'_ on principle, he would gladly make an exception to get that particular bloodsucker off his back. There weren't enough discrepancies in his story to warrant a court-martial, and they both knew it. But the agent had the pull to slate him for _'further debriefing'_ and make him vanish in the paperwork until he was ready to confess to all and every accusation imaginable, and they both knew that, too.

He blinked himself back to the situation at hand. "Ah… yes, certainly. If it's up to the doctor, I'll be back on light duty, tomorrow."

Dark eyes narrowed. "_If_ it's up to the doctor? Who else would have a say in this?"

The spook stepped forward with a self-righteous smile. "Well, I do, for instance. I don't think, you grasp the seriousness of the situation, the colonel here finds himself in, my dear girl…"

Veers nearly winced. The cape turned into an impressive swirl of fabric as the princess swung around like a turbolaser acquiring a new target. "And you would be, who exactly?"

At this unexpected resistance to his superior attitude, the man tried to reinforce his position. "Major Arabanth, of the Imperial Security Bureau," he gave back, smile fading away.

"I see." The generally feared agency failed to leave the princess intimidated in any way, which visibly took the spook aback. "Then I propose you apprise me of the situation, Major."

For a moment, the princess studied the man intently, while he sorted his thoughts – to put the most tactically advantageous spin to the story, no doubt – before she added, with a sweet smile, "I would be most interested to hear, what part a _major_ has in determining a _colonel's_ fate – especially one advanced by Lord Vader himself."

None too bad a Sabbacc player, the agent knew when to fold'em. "A mere formality, Your Highness, surely you agree that proper procedure must be followed?"

Her Highness graciously assented and motioned at him to continue, but gave no sign of vacating the room anytime soon. Resignedly, the major asked a few more superfluous questions and then bowed himself out. The two guards shared a look and followed him past the door.

The ice queen melted back into a worried teenager. "Whew! I thought, he would never leave. Are you _really_ alright?"

Veers shook his head incredulously, then marshaled a reassuring smile. "Yes, kid, I'm fine. Thanks, in no small part, to you and… your companion?"

The white-haired girl pushed back her hood and curtseyed gracefully. "I am Winter, ward of Prince Organa and handmaiden to Princess Leia," she introduced herself formally, pointedly ignoring a grumbled "We grew up together, like sisters, really."

Then the serious expression morphed into an impish grin. "Not a frost-specter, actually, though I won't blame you for mistaking me for one."

_There went the last chance of blaming everything on wound fever and remarkable coincidences._ "I was hardly at my best, at that point," the colonel protested – he hadn't even been aware he had said that aloud!

"You were … mumbling." The teasing smile widened, then vanished. "I'm just glad, I let Leia talk me into going along with one of her stunts," Winter said earnestly.

"Though," a dark glare glanced off the princess's studied nonchalance, " if she had told me more than that she was going stir-crazy, from smiling prettily while worrying about you, while we were still in the vicinity of the capital, I would have assembled a more substantial search team."

"Very reasonable. You should listen to her good sense more often, Princess."

While said princess sputtered in indignation, colonel and handmaiden shared a knowing look.

"Of course," Veers went on, addressing the white-haired girl, again, "a young lady in your… let's say, _responsible_ position, shouldn't even know, let alone _use _that sort of vocabulary, not even in Bothese!"

It was Winter's turn to sputter indignantly, and suddenly there was easy laughter between the three of them.


	5. Appreciation

Inspired by a prompt from Lcsaf – who, accordingly, earned naming rights for a character in a following chapter, by the rules of this story.

* * *

It was generally frowned upon, heavily and with good reasons, for a man to celebrate his release from the infirmary by going for a stiff drink. Nonetheless, Colonel Veers felt the need for a fortifying one – it would have been bad style, after all, to knock his rescuers' heads together until common sense rattled back into place. Strictly speaking, he had already overstepped his bounds, when he'd taken both the princess and her handmaiden to task, once he'd realized _exactly where_ the two girls had picked him up, despite the fact that he was neither a relative, nor held any position of authority over the pair.

Such valid justifications notwithstanding, it wouldn't do to alienate the resident MedCorps officers – and the bar at the officer mess in Cardua Prime was woefully understocked, in any case; Veers rarely indulged, but he firmly believed that life was too short to drink cheap wine, let alone stronger spirits. Consequently, the colonel had used the fact that he wasn't duty-bound to be anywhere specific until the next morning, and gone for the old Founder's Quarter of the Carduan capital. The local liquor was no Corellian whiskey, but it came close – if one knew where to ask for it.

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Veers was staring moodily into a half-full glass of amber liquid, when someone slid onto the barstool beside him.

"I'll have the same as my friend here." A smooth baritone ordered.

The colonel was about to tell the newcomer, sharply, that he wasn't in the mood for company, let alone the sort picked up in a bar, when the peculiarities of the accent registered.

"Prince Organa." He nodded a greeting at the tall politician, then allowed his surprise at the encounter to show – the bar wasn't a dive, by any definition, but not exactly renowned for hosting royalty and planetary representatives. "What brings you here, Your Highness?"

"Colonel Veers," dark eyes gave the colonel an almost concerned once-over. "It occurred to me that I never had the opportunity to thank you, in person, for how you handled the situation on Nihoa. Seeing how I almost didn't get the chance, I'm glad my daughter was able to return the favor."

Veers almost snorted. "I do not wish to sound ungrateful, sir, but what I did on Nihoa was hardly worth the risk she took for me."

Organa frowned. "I don't seem to follow…"

_Figured._ The colonel took a bracing sip. "I do hate to repeat myself, but what has your daughter told you about the incident, earlier, Your Highness?"

To his credit, this time the Alderaani didn't try to hide behind the diplomatic mask. Instead he sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "Dare I ask, what she did this time?"

"Scared off an ISB spook, for starters. But I'm more concerned about her and her friend going on a joyride through hostile territory."

Organa gulped down his own share of liquid courage, too fast to discern anything about the taste. "I would appreciate a few more details, Colonel."

_Well, where to start?_ Veers didn't consider himself a belligerent drunk – nor to be drunk, at all, with barely half a glass of Amasec under his belt! – but it had been a long couple of days and so he went for the most serious grievance, first.

"Your daughter is a hopeless romantic, sir," he told the other man gruffly.

The viceroy choked on his drink and the colonel realized belatedly that this probably was **_not_** what the father of a sixteen-year-old girl wanted to hear from a non-related forty-something male. He hastily relegated the next sentence, he'd been going to use, to a later point – any mention of _innocence_ would probably not go over well, at the moment.

"I understand that a certain glorification of the Battle of Alderaan during the Great War is part of your planet's heritage – and with good reasons, too. The way, the scattered ground forces pulled together and fought back against invaders superior both in numbers and capabilities, is nothing short of impressive. The problem is, heroic tales tend to… ah, gloss over the amount of pragmatism inherent in guerilla warfare."

Organa looked increasingly confused and Veers went on, "Thanks to a strong identification with the heroes of Alderaani history, your daughter – and her handmaiden – have a highly romanticized idea of resistance fighters. They expect them all to be _'good guys'_, deep down…"

The colonel shook his head at the memory. Winter had listened politely, if utterly unconvinced, the princess had argued back, passionately. They weren't a military target, therefore the rebels had no reasons to attack them, she had insisted. She was certainly old and smart enough to realize that unwanted witnesses, that might possibly give away the rebels' position, didn't have to be military to become a target – but she had steadfastly refused to believe so. The only inroads, Veers had achieved, had been the grudging admission that their logic, however faulty to begin with, would inevitably crumble if the girls had been caught with an Imperial officer in tow (no matter what state the latter was in) – another fact that obviously hadn't occurred to them…

"Your daughter's perfectly capable of sound strategic planning, her preparations prove that: I didn't bother to ask how and who she browbeat to get the position of the crash – or how and where they nicked a military grade lifesign detector – but they did. Winter then came up with an impressively logical deduction how to localize the most promising search area. But none of the two apparently wasted a thought on the fact that they were heading – without backup _or even telling anyone about their plans!_ – into a forest_ **proven**_ to hold aggressive hostile elements. No thought, at all, on how that meant they made _themselves_ an easy target…"

_Not that a pair of pretty young girls off on their lonesome isn't a target in and of itself…_, went without mention – but surely their father, and guardian, respectively, was more than aware of _that_.

Veers shook his head again. "With all due respect, sir, but it's nothing short of maddening, if someone as demonstrably intelligent as your daughter insists on clinging to such a recalcitrant belief that people will _'play fair' _even in a combat situation!"

There was a long moment of silence.

"It is the privilege of youth to be idealistic, innocent, even," the senator countered then, sounding mildly reproving – if not entirely convinced himself.

The colonel openly scoffed. "I do not begrudge them their innocence, far from it! But there's innocence and there's expecting safe conduct through rebel territory, and the latter is something that needs to be nipped in the bud! I'd rather…"

The glacial mask was back. Backtracking through his last sentence, Veers couldn't really fault the Alderaani; as a vocal part of the opposition in the Senate, he was always rumored to have connections to the Rebel Alliance...

_Dammit!_ The colonel hadn't meant to imply anything of the kind – almost two decades of outspoken protests made it rather obvious, in Veers opinion, that Organa preferred arguments as his weapon of choice, not actual violence.

_Maybe there _is_ something to be said about not mixing painkillers and alcohol. _Except… painkillers had been conspicuous by their absence, in today's treatment...

The colonel held up a placating hand. "I'm not saying, they have serious sympathies towards the Alliance or worse – the very fact that they went out of their way to ensure the survival of an Imperial officer counters that line of thinking fairly well. Though, I might be biased, in that regard…"

The viceroy gave an undignified snort.

"Allow me to endorse your bias, then," he said, holding out his glass to clink it against the colonel's.

"I will certainly talk to Leia – and Winter, too – about thinking about the possible repercussions of their actions _before _they undertake them, citing your professional opinion to reinforce my arguments, if you don't mind," Organa went on, after they'd both savored a mouthful of Amasec.

"I wish, I could say they will take them to heart… Well, Winter will, most likely, but Leia… Leia will always throw caution to the wind, if she thinks, what she does, is the right thing to do. She's far too much like her mother, in that regard…"

The senator trailed off, staring into the distance, and Veers recalled that the man was a widower, for many years.

He held out his glass to the other man. "To loves gone too soon," he proposed, voice a bit rough.

They drained the rest of their glasses, silence spreading between them as each man was lost in his own memories, but not an uncomfortable one.

Then the trained diplomat smoothly changed the topic. "You also mentioned an ISB involvement, earlier, I believe?"

The colonel nodded. "A Major Arabanth. Typical scavenger. Tried to play power games for the sake of power games, but backed off rather quickly, when he was informed about the risk of tangling with _real_ power."

Namely – in the most literal sense – one Dark Lord of the Sith, by Veers' assessment. If the major was smart – and a certain level of intelligence was hopefully prerequisite for his profession – he would have known how possessively (not necessarily protectively, but very _possessively_) the Sithlord tended to react, if anyone encroached on what (or who) his lordship considered _'his own'_.

But mentioning, how nonchalantly the little princess had dropped Lord Vader's name, smoothly – _smilingly!_ – implying a connection no only between the Sith and the colonel, but also between the former and herself, would probably not reassure her father.

"Very condescending fellow, too, especially towards... little girls," he said instead, perfectly truthful, "I doubt, the Major will risk another confrontation."

The senator considered him for a moment too long to hold onto the hope that his diversion had worked, but didn't question Veers' statement.

"Oh, well, at least this time, there wasn't a bucket of paint involved," Organa muttered, instead.

The colonel raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Condescending moff, grand gala, pink paint," the senator listed in a flat voice. "I'm still trying to forget the rest of the incident."

It took decades worth of military self-control to smother the laugh that wanted to rise at the mental image.

"Ah," Veers commented eloquently.

"Quite," the Alderaani agreed and waved the barkeeper over to refill their glasses.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

As they progressed through the bottle, they swapped a few more anecdotes about the hair-raising art of bringing up children (more often than not _in absentia_, to both men's regret, but there were always exhaustive messages and the odd, more or less frantic holocall). They made Veers increasingly aware – _and grateful, exceedingly grateful!_ – for how well-behaved a child his son had been so far (barring a short episode just after his mother's untimely death, but that was probably to be expected).

He really needed to express his appreciation, the next time he saw the boy (_almost a young man, these days, to be honest_), the colonel decided.

* * *

A/N: Veers isn't stupid; he's just doing something that's so basic human nature, that you have to train aspiring scientists, policemen and other kinds of investigators long and hard to break them out of the habit (hopefully): he starts with a theory and interprets the facts to fit said theory, not the other way round. He already _'knows'_ the girls aren't with the rebels, because, Exhibit A: Veers, himself, is still breathing, despite the fact that he's an Imperial officer with relevant, specific knowledge of the local group's tactical preferences, some of their skills and weaponry and even some of their faces; aka the sort of liability you _really_ don't want to get away. So, _obviously,_ there must be other reasons for the girls' blithely unconcerned behavior and some sort of hero worship is none too uncommon in teenagers. Trust the princess of a strongly pacifistic world to go for the classics, though... (4000 years, that's beyond Trojan War territory, around here ;).  
Organa Sr., who has decades worth of experience in political maneuverings, is doing his level best to strengthen that impression (and Winter probably has some experience, too, in fast-talking to explain away Leia's otherwise inexplicable talent to steer straight for whatever place or person she wants to find…)

A/N2: I've never played _The Old Republic_ nor read the affiliated comics, so maybe the secondary sources I have gave me the wrong impressions; in any case, though, the Battle of Alderaan was most likely not won by some Republic Special Forces and a handful of Jedi, alone. Their role was probably more akin to that of British specialist forces parachuting into France, Yugoslavia, Whathaveyou in the early 1940s, to advise/provide equipment and/or intelligence for the local résistance, partisans, etc.: pivotal for certain specific missions, but by no means decisive for the war as such, without the support of the natives... So, at least in my version of Alderaan, there's a rich heritage of epic sagas about the _Alderaani_ heroes of the Great War!


End file.
